Experts agree that the secret to achieving exceptionally keen edges is a crisp, clean apex, and that this is easiest to produce using a hard, fine stone. The Black Magic honing plate is an exceptionally hard stone, both in composition and structure, and produces the crisp apex that's so strongly desired in a finished edge on cutting tools of all sorts. Best used with light pressure in the final strokes of the sharpening process or for light maintenance honing. Treated right, this honing plate will provide generations of faithful service. Sintered alumina ceramics have been available for years, and make excellent finishing stones, but suffer from an inability to shed grit from their surface in use, and as the abrasive eventually wears, the stone becomes blunt and will burnish rather than cut, making a re-dressing of the face necessary. While sintered silicon carbide is more costly to produce than alumina ceramics, it is both harder and more friable, leading to a slower rate of wear to the grains and the grains themselves being able to fracture more readily to expose fresh cutting surface. As a result of this, we haven't yet had to resurface any of the silicon carbide honing plates that we've subjected to extended normal sharpening duty. In the event that exceptional flatness is needed or something has caused blunting of the grains, inexpensive lapidary diamond on a piece of float glass may be used to restore a fresh, flat cutting surface. The Black Magic Honing Stone is pictured above with The Grimalkin bushcrafting knife!  Abrasive Type: Sintered Silicon CarbideCut Finish: Ultra-FineCut Speed: Medium-SlowBond Strength: Ultra-HardWeight: 7.8ozLength: 4"Width: 4"Thickness: 1/4" Proudly Made in the USA!